This day in Mavericks’ history, Dirk Nowitzki played his first NBA game
February 5, 1999 is one of the most important days in the history of the Dallas Mavericks franchise, and arguably the NBA as a whole. It marked Dirk Nowitzki’s first NBA game in what would become a legendary 21 season career. Nowitzki officially began his NBA journey at the NBA Draft seven months prior, on June 24, 1998. Though very few could have predicted what a defining Draft that would be for the franchise, the foundation for the new millennium Dallas Mavericks was indeed being set that night.
Draft night deals
Nowitzki was selected ninth overall by the Milwaukee Bucks, three picks after the Mavericks chose Robert “Tractor” Traylor with the number 6 pick. Shortly after the Bucks chose Pat Garrity with pick 19, the two teams made a trade. The Mavericks received both Nowitzki and Garrity from the Bucks in exchange for Traylor. The wheeling and dealing wouldn’t stop there, however. Garrity, along with Martin Muursepp, Bubba Wells and the Mavericks’ 1999 First Round Pick would be shipped to the Phoenix Suns for Steve Nash.
At the time, no one (except maybe Don Nelson) could have predicted that the Mavericks had just acquired two future league MVPs and an NBA Finals MVP in Nash and Nowitzki. In fact, what has somehow come to be known in current times as an epic trade fail on the part of the Bucks, was in reality anything but. The Bucks were very interested in Traylor’s services, as they needed a big man down low to fill a hole in their roster. The Mavericks meanwhile, with Don Nelson at the coaching helm (with his son Donnie having also joined the team in January of 1998), had their eyes on Nowitzki prior to Draft night. So much so, that Don Nelson is on record having claimed they literally hid Nowitzki in Donnie’s basement so he would not work out for other teams in the weeks leading up to the draft!
Keep in mind, this was a much different era in the NBA. European players were much less prolific on NBA rosters than they are today (but the Nelson’s would see to it that those tides would be shifting). The Nelson’s were onto something, and they were keen on keeping a tight lid on Nowitzki. Despite how the narrative has changed over the past quarter century, the reality is that Nowitzki to the Mavs was not due to a Bucks failure of judgment. The Bucks had no interest in Nowitzki because they had no idea who he was. In reality, the Mavericks choreographed one of the most franchise-defining nights in team history. The Mavericks easily could have, and would have, drafted Nowitzki number 6 if they hadn’t pre-arranged the Draft night swap which ultimately set them up to also acquire Nash. Through a series of moves, they massively overhauled their roster. Still, nobody really believed in the greatness to come.
Don Nelson: Genius or insane?
The trade for Nowitzki was generally criticized as typical Don Nelson quackery. It puzzled most pundits that the Mavericks would skip over Paul Pierce, a future Hall of Famer and Champion in his own right, to select an unheard-of Nowitzki. Making matters worse, Don Nelson’s recent track record was not viewed all that favorably at the time. He was relatively fresh off a stint as the New York Knicks head coach, which lasted all but nine months. According to Nelson in an interview on Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, he suggested the Knicks trade franchise stalwart Patrick Ewing in order to acquire Shaquille O’Neal. What seems like the obvious choice decades later, was anything but at the time. According to Nelson, his idea was not met with much enthusiasm and when word of this got back to Ewing himself, it was the beginning of the end of Nelson’s Knicks tenure. As we know now, Nelson wasn’t quite as crazy as everyone thought back then. Still, the start of the journey for the new look Mavericks wasn’t exactly pretty.
The start of a legendary career
The 1998-1999 NBA Season didn’t begin until February 5, 1999 due to a lockout that ended less than a month prior. While the NBA headlines were dominated by the Collective Bargaining Agreement up until that point, Dirk Nowitzki was in Germany refining his game, hoping he could overcome his own self-doubts to in fact make the jump to the NBA. By the time February, 1999 rolled around, he was back in the states preparing to start his NBA journey on the actual hardwood.
The Mavericks opened the season in Seattle against the Supersonics (the team now known as the Oklahoma City Thunder), with Nowitzki in the starting lineup alongside Steve Nash, Michael Finley, AC Green and Shawn Bradley. In what would prove to be a close game decided in over-time, Nowitzki did not fare well in his sixteen minutes of play. Shooting 0-for-5 from the field, including a missed three-point attempt, Nowitzki logged two points after going perfect from the stripe. He also dished four assists and committed a single personal foul. His two counterparts on what would eventually become Dallas’ Big 3 didn’t look much better. Combined, the trio shot an abysmal 7-for-35 (20%) from the floor in the loss.
The Mavericks did experience a reversal of fortune two nights later in Golden State, where they defeated the Warriors in double overtime. Nowitzki went 6-for-10 from the floor, including 2-for-4 on threes, notching his first career double-double with 16 points and 12 rebounds. The Mavericks ended the season with a 19-31 record in the lockout-shortened campaign, but in the coming years, neither the franchise nor the league at large would ever be the same. The Mavericks would become one of most dominant teams of the 2000s, logging the second most regular season wins from 1999-2000 through 2008-2009 with 548 (San Antonio; 576) over that ten-year span, good for a 66.8% winning percentage. Nowitzki of course proved to be a primary catalyst of a league-wide paradigm shift that saw power forwards hoisting three-point attempts, which ultimately paved the way for the so called “positionless” game played today.
Nowitzki ended his career as a 14-time NBA All-Star, 12-time All NBA selection, 2007 MVP, 2011 Finals MVP, 2011 NBA Champion and 2023 inductee into the Hall of Fame. He also managed to drop 31,560 career points. We may not have known it back on that February night, but a new world order was being ushered in for the Dallas Mavericks at the turn of the century, led by a young man from Germany that would go from unknown to NBA legend.